4 Basics for Scaling Your Business With Web-Based Technology Having the right technology in place is key to growing your healthy small business to its full potential.
By Pat Jackson Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
There are many types of businesses and many ways to grow them. Smart staffing, aggressive business development, strategic partnerships, investor relations and many other functions all contribute. But to grow from a small to a large company, you have to be able to both drive distinctiveness in your business model and to create efficiency and scale.
Setting your company apart from the competition will help attract customers, investors and employees, while driving leads, profitability and growth. Efficiency and scale are also paramount to expanding profit margins. Both are needed for handing an expansive client load. While many factors play into differentiating your business and achieving superb efficiency and scalable operations, there is one thing that greatly contributes to all – technology.
Related: 3 Ways to Make Your Business More Efficient
But what technology should be utilized and when?
1. Web-based platforms for round-the-clock access to your customer. Web-based technology platforms are ideal for a number of business solutions. They are logical. Our constant use of smart phones and tablets is not only a way of life phenomenon, but also represents a powerful and direct means to reach and influence your customer around the clock. Equally important, Web-based platforms allow your customers to reach you.
2. Common ways to improve business efficacy with Web technology. Programs built for the Internet environment are well-suited for client facing interactions, as well as for the aggregation and processing all kinds of information. Most businesses require applications and forms to be completed by customers, and Web-based programs give clients 24/7 access and efficient ways to complete them.
Web platforms also compile large amounts of data into central databases and provide multiple ways for deciphering, organizing and evaluating that information. Not only do these benefits improve speed in your operations, they also enable scale (your ability to exponentially increase the amount of business you are able to conduct).
Related: Five DIY Online Form Builders
Common applications of Web-based interfaces include credit card entry forms, CRM entries and databases, investor reporting tools and customer service interfaces, among countless others. But the real power of these interfaces is when they are utilized to create new, unique business processes, pushing slow adopter companies (and even whole industries) to evolve and improve the ways business is conducted.
3. Technology platforms that differentiate your business model and create scale. Once you identify how competitors utilize technology, you may formulate a unique strategy for maximizing efficiency within your own business. Look for ways to employ and combine technology processes to differentiate and create a unique business model. Assume you are able to create custom technology platforms, because you can. Web technologies include "off the shelf" solutions for common functions, custom-built tools for individual business challenges, and the combination of both which allows for truly unique solutions.
4. Integrate technology into your brand. Once you have embraced cutting-edge technology and implemented it into your organization, make sure your corporate brand reflects that. If your technology solutions better the current industry standards for conducting business, strengthen your brand with it to attract customers and superior talent, as well as to align your employees and partners with your goals and values.
Related: Technology Helps Service Brands Expand
